Proposition R attracted national attention, including articles in the New York Times and Washington Post.

More than 11,000 petition signatures were submitted to qualify the measure for the ballot.[2],[3]

If Proposition R had passed, it would have re-named the city's Oceanside Treatment Plant as the George W. Bush Sewage Plant. The group supporting the initiative called itself the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco.

John Rinaldi, a co-sponsor of the petition who ran unsuccessfully for San Francisco mayor in 2007 using his nickname, "Chicken John", said the initiative would turn "every toilet in San Francisco into basically a shrine for George W. Bush and all his great achievements in his eight years as our commander in chief."